DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 06/09/2025 is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement(s) is/are being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1 or 2) as being anticipated by Kanoh et al. (US 20220264093) (hereinafter Kanoh).
Regarding claim 11, this claim is directed to a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a bitstream generated by a method. Significantly, the claimed non-transitory computer readable medium is not implementing any method; no instructions/steps are being executed. Instead, the claimed storage medium merely stores the data output from and/or generated by a method. In other words, these claims are directed to a mere machine-readable medium storing data content (a bitstream generated by a method).
Applicant seeks to patent the storage of a bitstream in the abstract. In other words, the claim seeks to patent the content of the information (bitstream with video content) and not the process itself. Moreover, this stored bitstream does not impose any definitive physical organization on the data as there is no functional relationship between the bitstream and the storage medium. In conclusion, this claim is directed to mere data content (bitstream generated by the recited method) stored as a bitstream on a computer-readable storage medium. Under MPEP 2111.05(III), such claims are merely machine-readable media. Furthermore, there is no disclosed or claimed functional relationship between the stored data and medium. Instead, the medium is merely a support or carrier for the data being stored. Therefore, the data stored and the way such data is generated should not be given patentable weight. See MPEP 2111.05 applying In re Lowry, 32 F.3d 1579, 1583-84, 32 USPQ2d 1031, 1035 (Fed. Cir. 1994) and In re Ngai, 367 F.3d 1336, 70 USPQ2d 1862 (Fed. Cir. 2004). As such, this claim is subject to a prior art rejection based on any non-transitory computer readable medium known before the earliest effective filing date of the present application. Therefore, this claim is anticipated by Kanoh paragraph(s) 4 and 567, which discloses a computer readable medium storing a coded bitstream.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically taught as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1-4, 6-9 and 11-12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kanoh et al. (US 20220264093) (hereinafter Kanoh) in view of Garus et al. (“Non-EE2: Non-Separable Primary Transform for Intra Coding,” JVET, October 2022) (hereinafter Garus).
Regarding claim 1, Kanoh teaches An image decoding method, comprising:
obtaining residual information from a bitstream; deriving transform coefficients of a current block based on the residual information; applying a backward non-separable primary transform (NSPT) to at least one of the transform coefficients of the current block to derive residual samples of the current block; and reconstructing the current block based on the residual samples of the current block (see Kanoh paragraphs 52-53, 148, 252, 259-261, 265, 289, and 314-315 regarding residual information in a bitstream, transform coefficients of a current block, and an inverse non-separable primary transform applied to the transform coefficients of the current block to derive residual samples of the current block so that a current block can be reconstructed),
However, Kanoh does not explicitly teach block size dependency as needed for the limitations of claim 1.
Garus, in a similar field of endeavor, teaches wherein the backward NSPT is applied based on a size of the current block belonging to a group of one or more block sizes to which the NSPT is applicable (see Garus pages 1-2 and figure 1 regarding an inverse NSPT being applied based on the size of the current block that is in a group of blocks with applicable sizes, where the set is one of 35 predefined sets with 3 candidates including 4x4, 4x8, and 8x8- in combination with Kanoh the inverse NSPT may be applied based on the block size. Also, it is noted that in Garus, for an 8x8 block, the NSPT is applied to 32 coefficients).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to modify the teaching of Kanoh to include the teaching of Garus so that in combination with Kanoh the inverse NSPT may be applied based on the block size. Also, it is noted that in Garus, for an 8x8 block, the NSPT is applied to 32 coefficients.
One would be motivated to combine these teachings in order to utilize an NSPT when it is most efficient and appropriate (see Garus pages 1-2 and figure 1).
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Kanoh and Garus teaches all aforementioned limitations of claim 1, and is analyzed as previously discussed.
Furthermore, the combination of Kanoh and Garus teaches wherein an NSPT set for the NSPT is determined as any one of 35 pre-defined NSPT sets (see Garus pages 1-2 and figure 1 regarding an inverse NSPT being applied based on the size of the current block that is in a group of blocks with applicable sizes, where the set is one of 35 predefined sets with 3 candidates including 4x4, 4x8, and 8x8- in combination with Kanoh the inverse NSPT may be applied based on the block size. Also, it is noted that in Garus, for an 8x8 block, the NSPT is applied to 32 coefficients).
One would be motivated to combine these teachings in order to utilize an NSPT when it is most efficient and appropriate (see Garus pages 1-2 and figure 1).
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Kanoh and Garus teaches all aforementioned limitations of claim 2, and is analyzed as previously discussed.
Furthermore, the combination of Kanoh and Garus teaches wherein each of the 35 NSPT sets includes three NSPT kernel candidates (see Garus pages 1-2 and figure 1 regarding an inverse NSPT being applied based on the size of the current block that is in a group of blocks with applicable sizes, where the set is one of 35 predefined sets with 3 candidates including 4x4, 4x8, and 8x8- in combination with Kanoh the inverse NSPT may be applied based on the block size. Also, it is noted that in Garus, for an 8x8 block, the NSPT is applied to 32 coefficients).
One would be motivated to combine these teachings in order to utilize an NSPT when it is most efficient and appropriate (see Garus pages 1-2 and figure 1).
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Kanoh and Garus teaches all aforementioned limitations of claim 1, and is analyzed as previously discussed.
Furthermore, the combination of Kanoh and Garus teaches wherein the group includes at least one of 4x4, 4x8, 8x4, 8x8, 16x8, or 8x16 (see Garus pages 1-2 and figure 1 regarding an inverse NSPT being applied based on the size of the current block that is in a group of blocks with applicable sizes, where the set is one of 35 predefined sets with 3 candidates including 4x4, 4x8, and 8x8- in combination with Kanoh the inverse NSPT may be applied based on the block size. Also, it is noted that in Garus, for an 8x8 block, the NSPT is applied to 32 coefficients).
One would be motivated to combine these teachings in order to utilize an NSPT when it is most efficient and appropriate (see Garus pages 1-2 and figure 1).
Independent claim(s) 6 is/are analogous in scope to claim(s) 1, albeit in inverse encoding form, and is/are rejected according to the same reasoning.
Dependent claim(s) 7-9 is/are analogous in scope to claim(s) 2-4, albeit in inverse encoding form, and is/are rejected according to the same reasoning.
Regarding claim 11, the combination of Kanoh and Garus teaches all aforementioned limitations of claim 6, and is analyzed as previously discussed.
Furthermore, the combination of Kanoh and Garus teaches A computer-readable storage medium storing a bitstream generated by the image encoding method according to Claim 6 (see Koo paragraphs 4 and 567).
Independent claim(s) 12 is/are analogous in scope to claim(s) 1, albeit in inverse encoding form used as a method to transmit a bitstream, and is/are rejected according to the same reasoning.
Claim(s) 5 and 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kanoh et al. (US 20220264093) (hereinafter Kanoh) in view of Garus et al. (“Non-EE2: Non-Separable Primary Transform for Intra Coding,” JVET, October 2022) (hereinafter Garus), further in view of Koo et al. (WO 2021206445) (hereinafter Koo).
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Kanoh and Garus teaches all aforementioned limitations of claim 1, and is analyzed as previously discussed.
However, the combination of Kanoh and Garus does not explicitly teach the number of transform coefficients to which an NSPT is applied for an 8x16 block as needed for the limitations of claim 5.
Koo, in a similar field of endeavor, teaches wherein, based on the size of the current block being 8x16, a number of transform coefficients to which the backward NSPT is applied is 40 (see Koo paragraphs 208-226 and figures 11-13 regarding 8 transform coefficients for an 8x8 block- in combination with Garus, which teaches 32 transform coefficients for an 8x8 block, a combined 8x16 block may have 40 transform coefficients to which the inverse NSPT is applied).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to modify the combination of Kanoh and Garus to include the teaching of Koo so that in combination with Garus, which teaches 32 transform coefficients for an 8x8 block, a combined 8x16 block may have 40 transform coefficients to which the inverse NSPT is applied.
One would be motivated to combine these teachings in order to apply the NSPT effectively to an 8x16 block (see Koo paragraphs 208-226 and figures 11-13).
Dependent claim(s) 10 is/are analogous in scope to claim(s) 5, albeit in inverse encoding form, and is/are rejected according to the same reasoning.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Matthew D Kim whose telephone number is (571)272-3527. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday: 9:30am - 5:30pm EST.
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/MATTHEW DAVID KIM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2483
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